Productivity and Protection with SecureDoc™

With a recognized presence in all the major international financial markets and a network of 20 offices in 15 countries across the globe this prestigious Swiss firm is one of the largest private banking firms in Europe. Attaching great importance to its independence, the key to its freedom of judgment, the company has always remained committed to its original vocation – helping clients to preserve and grow the assets they have entrusted to them, and passing these assets on to future generations.

Looking to increase efficiency the company began researching methods that could provide staff with simpler and more efficient remote access to its internal network without compromising system security. “Before our security was based on a ‘two separate network’ topology in which one network was open to internet, but did not enable access to our applications and internal mail system, and the second one was completely closed and secure,” commented Mr. Rochat, responsible for IT at the bank. “In order to improve efficiency we decided to move on to a new topology, with a secure network open to the internet, but with all the latest security technology required to guarantee the system was still protected against any possible attack or intrusion.”

“Laptops would pose the major challenge to providing more efficient system access as by definition they are a ‘nomadic’ device,” explained Rochat. “Even though we don’t have any data stored locally on the computer, and we communicate through a VPN, this is not enough for a complete secure solution on a laptop that could be lost or stolen.”

After researching available technologies Rochat and his team realized that there was only one solution that could provide the air-tight security required to guarantee a stolen notebook would not provide unauthorized network access – without compromising simple and efficient data access for remote users.

Best overall functionality and seamless integration to smart cards

“It was obvious that the only way to guarantee data security was to protect the entire disk against risk, and after researching all available full-disk encryption solutions, it was clear that WinMagic’s SecureDoc was the ideal for our requirements,” commented Rochat. “SecureDoc provided the best overall functionality, and was the only complete encryption solution that could be seamlessly integrated with our existing smart card authentication.” Rochat was delighted to find the full-disk encryption software was easy to install and integrate.

“We have all the usual security technologies, such as a VPN and firewalls, and I have never had any problem integrating SecureDoc with any of the other security products,” said Rochat. “WinMagic also provided all the necessary tools to make software deployment an easy task.”

Designed to integrate with an existing public key infrastructure (PKI) certificate and public and private keys, SecureDoc can also create its own pair of public and private keys on a smart card. This functionality was extremely useful when meeting this bank’s strict data security protocols. “As with all security, the more secure you want be, the more difficult administration will become,” said Rochat. “For example, we decided not to have any administration keyfiles on the laptops, and because of this decision it is more difficult for us to manage the security applications,” Rochat continued. “In a company like ours you can’t compromise when it comes to security, and so we use SecureDoc in the most secure way possible to achieve our very-high data protection requirements.” Most importantly, SecureDoc was simple to integrate with the company existing smart card authentication security.

Developed to seamlessly integrate with multi-factor authentication and biometric technology at pre-boot SecureDoc makes it simple for an organization to combine the security benefits of full-disk encryption and strong user authentication without complicating the user log-on process. “SecureDoc’s smart card integration capability is particularly impressive,” noted Rochat. “The stability of the software means that you can interrupt the encryption at any time without any problems, while the transparent integration at pre-boot means that the log-on process is simple and intuitive for laptop users.”

Mr. Rochat was pleased to find that SecureDoc provided the flexibility to comply with his company extremely-tight security requirements, and was delighted with the assistance received during the installation.

Great software, great service

“We could not have had better assistance from WinMagic’s support staff,” Rochat continued. “Each time we asked for a new feature or modification, WinMagic came through very quickly.” SecureDoc has enabled this private bank to provide users with more efficient system access without compromising its stringent data security requirements. “By seamlessly encrypting the entire hard drive at pre-boot, SecureDoc has enabled this bank to securely combine two previously-separate networks to provide remote users with access to both the internet and the banking network from a single laptop without compromising data security,” commented Rochat. “Now, even if a laptop is stolen, it cannot provide unauthorized access to our data.”

And when asked if he would recommend SecureDoc to other organizations looking to secure all data, Rochat does not hesitate. “Definitely yes,” commented Rochat. “SecureDoc has enabled us to integrate data encryption with smart card authentication to protect all data on laptops without complicating the log-on process for authorized users.”

As a highly-respected and trusted private banking firm, they places data security as its highest priority, and Rochat is quick to point out that it is impossible to put a price on the peace of mind SecureDoc’s guaranteed data protection provides. “Paying for data security is like paying for insurance,” Rochat concluded. “You might not give it much thought during daily business, but should an incident occur, it is a really small price to pay to ensure all data is protected.”